


Before I Disappear

by ledtherevolution



Category: Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: AU, Boys In Love, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Las Vegas, Lots of Crying, M/M, Multi, Panic At The Disco (Band), Road Trips, Ryden, Sad, Suicide Attempt, brendon was in a band, friendly love, pete is a drug lord, polaroid pictures, ryan was a dj, spencer deserves a medal for this, spencer is a sweetheart, the one where brendon is dead and ryan is really sad about it, the one where spencer puts ryan back together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-05-29 17:42:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6385993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledtherevolution/pseuds/ledtherevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the movie Before I disappear by Shawn Christensen</p><p>Everything is red, the bathwater where I'd spent the last twelve hours trying to drown myself in a macabre cocktail of lavender sprigs and ribbons of blood flowering out from my wrists. The lights of the back hall of the club where I work. I used to DJ there, but since Brendon...</p><p>The music hasn't ever found me.</p><p>beta-d by mcusekat and rydenfanfiction on tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Dear Brendon,_

That's how they always start. Two words. Dear Brendon...

I know he'll never receive them, I know these are words I can't make him read or ever hope his eyes will ever acquaint themselves  with. I know these things but no matter how hard I try, the only person I can only think of that I believe is worthwhile to address with these words is him. Brendon.

Dear.

Brendon.

_//Dear Brendon,_

_I've been meaning to write this letter for a long time, but as you know, I'm not very good at expressing myself. So I'll just say this:_

_I miss your smile, I would say that I hope this note finds you well, but as these things go, that won't be the case._

 

Everything is red, the bathwater where I'd spent the last twelve hours trying to drown myself in a macabre cocktail of lavender sprigs and ribbons of blood flowering out from my wrists. The lights of the back hall of the club where I work. I used to DJ there, but since Brendon...

The music hasn't ever found me.

Couples high on anything from post-sex glow or pot to cocaine grind sloppily against each other in hopes of getting some form of penetration. It reeks of sex and the strange stench that fresh condoms give when used in mass quantities.

The club's called _the Groove_ , and most people go there for the massive amounts of exotic drugs Joe almost always has. They're cheap and fucking good too.

My cigarette dangles from my teeth as I maneuver my way to the bathroom. I have four beers sitting on my bladder and, with no intention of ever going back to the bar, I need to take a piss.

Four men in crumpled clothing grunt some sort of conversation by the urinals while two men that probably were both married furiously make out in the corner. The lights are dim, the floor sticky beyond belief and _god the smell._ Since the urinals are taken I push open one of the bathroom stalls. The seat's up, smeared in what only could be described as human shit. Wet toilet paper's crumpled in all corners. The next looks like some sort of rabid murder scene and the last-

The last contains the victim.

A boy, hardly a boy, sits between the toilet seat and the wall, eyes blank. He's pale, covered in sweat and tears, cracked phone in his clammy hand. I've been around, I know what this is. It's a drug overdose. It's heroin. I know the look. I know the smell. And this boy looks so frightened that it must've been his first. God _he's dead._

I shut the door and usher the six other men out, swearing that I was about to take a massive shit and needed space.

I open the stall door again. He's still there. I reach out, his phone is still on, unlocked. I have no idea what possesses me to take it but the urge is overwhelming and uncontrollable. He was texting someone, the message is unfinished, the last few characters are strange numbers and random keystrokes he couldn't have meant.

It was his girlfriend, presumably. Breezy was probably some sort of pet name for her. 

_I love you, I'm sorry we fough1133hhghsd77_

I erase the last few characters and hit send for him.

 

The police arrive a few minutes after Pete calls them.

"God, Jesus _fucking hell,"_ he runs his hands through his died blonde hair. "God, Ry, this is going to _kill business."_

I assume he's not making a joke.

 

When I get home I take the crumpled piece of notebook paper from the inside of my jacket pocket and open it. I try to flatten it as much as possible before grabbing a pencil and beginning to write again.

_//Dear Brendon,_

_A few hours ago I found this boy looking a little too peaceful of the last bathroom at the Groove. At first I didn't know what to think of it. I checked his pulse, but he was gone. And the scary thing is, he reminded me a little bit of you and just like you he left someone behind._

_Greif always hits me late, and I know tomorrow I'll feel like shit for him and his girl but now? Now I just feel numb._

The world goes on without the boy in the bathroom, that doesn't surprise me. But what does is Pete calling at four in the morning. He knows I'm awake.

"I'm sorry you had to see that, Ry," he sighs through the speaker. I don't know what to say, so I say nothing at all. "Beautiful young boy dead on the toilet seat, I mean nobody needs that kind of excitement, am I right?" He sort of laughs, but it's pained. I resent him for it. While he talks, I settle for tracing circles into the faux granite countertop of my cramped apartment.

"What do you owe the Groove?" Pete asks. I know he's talking about the drug debt I have for all of the hits I couldn't pay for at the time. "Because that debt is gone. It's gone, Ry. Okay?"

I nod even though I know he can't see me. "And all the money you owe everybody else? I'm gonna look the other way on that too." I nod again. I don't care about the debt. I don't give a shit about the money or the fucking drugs either. I just want to be left alone. I let him wish me a good night and hang up.

 

Unfortunately, I wake up the next morning without amnesia, or six feet underground, or in the middle of the pacific, or even dead.

 

_//Dear Brendon,_

_The world is a cold and lonely place without you in it, Bren. I just miss you._

_And since you've been gone, I've been accused of being an observer. A user, a loner, a cleaner, a failure, wasted talent and a fool. But never a participant._

_No, no one's ever accused me of that._

_Anyway, I've decided it's time to call it quits._ _The drugs no longer work._

_I'm coming home to see you, and there's nothing that's gonna stop me this time._

 

I lay the page torn from my old songwriting book out on the plate of his old turntable. I take the polaroid of us together where he's laughing, staring at the camera and I'm grinning, eyes only for him. Still.

It's the last time I remember being happy.

Just Bren. Always just Bren.

 

I fill the bathtub up again, replace the lavender with rose petals and the pink water with fresh.

I take the razor and cut open the gauze from the night before and reopen the cuts. They bleed and sting but I know it'll be over soon. Just a few hours and I'll lose consciousness. Then I'll hopefully drown.

 

My telephone rings from somewhere in the house. I think it's from my bedroom, but my head is spinning so fast it's impossible to discern. It's on the bathmat, I remember.

But my twitching hands reach down, loosely grasp the phone and press it clumsily to my ear. The razor is still between my fingers.

"Hello?"

"Ry, I need some help. I know you're not-" It's Spencer.

"Whatever you need, I'm there," I mumble into the receiver.

"Thank God, listen, there's this concert tonight and my guitarist broke his wrist I was wondering if you could fill in? Just for tonight?"

I think of my wrists.

"Okay."

"Sweet!" he says. And I don't think of what performing without Bren will imply.

I try not to kill myself before eight.

 

I meet Spencer in the parking lot with my guitar in its case at my hip.

He hugs me and I slowly raise my uncut hand to his back. His smile is bright and, for a moment, I want to hate him for it. How dare he move on? How dare he leave me alone as the famous Last Person Grieving?

But he had a life independent of Brendon. He had someone's shoulder to cry on. He had help. I may not be happy, but that gives me no right to place that burden on Spencer. 

It's not his fault for what happened.

"God, have you lost weight?" He asks carefully, eyes skimming over my body. I think of the ten pounds.

I force a smile and shake my head. 

He relaxes and rubs my shoulder. 

"We need to see each other more, Ry."

I nod 

"Yeah we do."

 

"Hey everybody!" Spencer's lead singer, Patrick, says to the small following they've been able to collect in the month they've been performing.

The crowd, along with the group of kids that enjoy going to live shows to purely discover new music, screams. Spencer leans into the dead mic and whispers, "I knew you'd miss it."

 I know he means the music.

And I also know that he's right.

The concert goes as planned, the songs pass without incident, the chords aren’t entirely butchered by the tingling fingers of my left hand. I remember most of what Patrick taught me, and the songs are good enough to make my heart beat rhythmically without making my head spin.

Dan, the guitarist on the other side of Patrick, begins to play the chords to the last song and I blindly follow him with my own hands. Something in the chords tugs at my brain, clawing at some memory from a time I’ve obviously forgotten. But Patrick begins to sing, and I somewhat understand why I’d begun to panic.

"These are the words I never said, we bleed the songs we never wrote!" Patrick sings into the sea of people gathered and the chords I learned in about three seconds. My fingers fumble with the chords with the shock of what Patrick just sang and I drink the room start to spin. I hear Brendon's broken voice as he said to me that no one loved him and the silence I let follow minutes before the-

 

I find myself outside, folded over on the damp sidewalk, shaking, sobbing, sinking.  I think Spencer's rubbing my back, but the world tips and Brendon's eyes flash in my head. 

I can't breathe and somehow Spencer knows what to do. He runs his fingers through my hair. Just like Bren had done. 

"I have an idea." 

 

Spencer takes me by the arm and leads me to his car, a little forest green Nissan by an oak tree. A couple of teens with more vodka in their bodies than blood giggle and stumble through the dark. He notices the goosebumps covering my skin and how my hands are shaking as I fumble with the car door a little too much. I can't even get it open. He sighs and opens the door for me, helping me inside. He drags the seatbelt over me and clicks it into place.

"Wait, hold on," he says, going around to the back. He opens the trunk and pulls out a grey hoodie that's probably three sizes too big for me. He pulls it over my head, redoes the seatbelt and slides in next to me. "What's your address?" He asks, putting the car in reverse and pulling out of the parking lot. I tell him without thinking of the pink bathwater or the sleeping pills littering the floor or the broken and empty bottles of gin. It's impossible, I decide, to keep it from him. But I'm going to try.

"...but I can go up myself." I say.

"No," Spencer responds. "I'm not taking you home for the night. We have a job to do, and we're going to do it together."

 

I try to fight off the rolling waves of nausea and still the shivers that crack each vertebrae of my spinal column. I know Pete will understand why I'm not at work. I know he'll pat me on the back and tell me that the next dosage of coke is on him.

I try to forget that Spencer is about to see my shame, the evidence of me being half drowned in my own misery. He will know. And he will never leave me alone about it.

 

The car ambles to a stop in the back lot of the complex.

Spencer, the true gentleman, comes around to get the door for me. I haven't stopped shaking, and Spence takes me by the elbow and the waist, leading me up the stairs. In another time, decidedly Before, I would have protested, I would have pushed him away, but I've done enough of that recently. And I can't put one fucking foot in front of the other without him there.

"What floor?" he asks, crossing the marble floors to the elevators.

"Seven," _high enough if the urge were to ever overtake me,_ I add to myself.

I hold on the handrails and try to regulate my breathing.

"Am I going to like what I'm about to see?" He asks, a hand still on my wrist (the slit one, but what he doesn't know won't kill him, maybe me, but not Spencer).

"Probably not."

 

I get out the key for my home, but my hands are still shaking, the key refuses to slide inside the keyhole. I swear and try again, but it proves useless.

"Here," Spencer takes the key and opens the door. He holds the door for me and I don't bother trying to clean as I go. "Go get all the pictures you have of Brendon," Spencer says.

I stop in my tracks. I can feel the tendrils of anxiety creeping up my spine, locking my shoulders.

"What?" I ask.

"You heard me," he says, looking up from my carpet, his leather jacket in one hand. "I know you keep them in that box you wouldn't let me touch when we came to see you." He keeps our eyes locked.

I run my hands through my hair and curse. He's right, and they're under my bed. I stomp into the back bedroom and drop to my hands and knees, pulling the dusty cardboard box from under the box spring. I quickly collect the picture on the lip of my bathtub. I leave the one taped to the inside of the record player. Bren put it there, and I'll be damned if I'm the one to rip it out. He taped it. His fingerprints are the only ones there, and I won't ruin that. 

Spencer wouldn't want it anyway. It's just a picture of me and our dead dog Phoebe. It was right before she kicked the bucket and Brendon cried for three days. I don't know why he kept it up, but it must be the same strange force that keeps me from taking it down. In Brendon's defense, Phoebe _was_ a good dog. 

"Are these all of them? Spencer asks, taking the box from me. I nod and wipe my nose. I hadn't even realized I was crying; maybe it was Phoebe's death. Or maybe it was remembering Brendon crying. 

Spencer opens the box to reveal - literally - hundreds of Polaroids. "Well I guess we better get started."

 

Spencer cleared a space wide enough for both of us to sit on the wooden floor.

"We won't need this one," he says, starting a second pile. It's a picture of Brendon and I from our trip to Cape Town a few years ago.

"Wait, why?" I ask.

"Because it's not inside the city," he says, an unsaid 'duh' written right across his face. I nod.

He pulls another picture from Cape Town out, this time it's a picture of Brendon half asleep on the bed across from me, hair ruffled with hickeys on his neck and collarbones.

"Dude, seriously? There are like-" he squints to count. "-seven." His face softens as he looks over the picture again. "Damn," he breathes. "He really did love you, you know that right?"

I nod.

The next few pictures are of us just around town; drinking on Mulholland Drive, eating some sort of pastry from the Perch, swimming in a hotel pool, in an art museum Bren insisted we go into, walking Phoebe on Venice Beach, those kinds of things.

There are a handful of pictures from Vegas, us kissing under the sign _,_ a couple of Brendon taking shots, one of me pulling our suitcase up the steps of Caesar's Palace, a few of us trying to gamble and another of us under the Reno sign. Spencer puts them in a third pile.

"Hey," he says abruptly. "Go pack an overnight bag."

"Why?" I ask slowly, narrowing my eyes at him.

"Because," he starts. "I want you to."

"Good one Mom," I roll my eyes. "For real, Spencer. Why?"

"Because we're going to go on a goddamn road trip and I need you on board for this." He doesn't look up from the piles he's making, the one for Vegas slowly getting bigger. It does help that Brendon went through and wrote down dates and locations for each Polaroid. It was like he knew-

"No." I say. "This is enough, I can't leave, I have a job-"

"Yeah the one handing out drinks at the _Groove?"_ he says, and it hurts more than he means it to and by the look on his face he knows it. "RyRo-"

"Don't call me that," I snap. That was Bren's name for me. And it's only his to use. "I'm not leaving. Pete won't let me."

"Then don't tell Pete," he says, helping me up from the floor. "We're going and that's final."

I scoff and brush myself off. "You can't make me go anywhere," I snarl, tensing my shoulders. "I am a damn adult and I don't have to go anywhere with you." I turn to slam my bedroom door and Spencer catches my (cut) wrist. Without meaning to I cry out, recoiling from his hand. His eyes widen, going from my eyes to the gauzed hand in his. I try to pull away, but his other hand clamps around my elbow. He pushes up the hoodie sleeve, the sleeve of the cardigan I was wearing before and he sucks in a breath. He turns my wrist over, undoing the tape and unwrapping my wrist.

The gashes are pretty deep, blood smearing through the gauze onto his fingertips.

"Ry," he says, and he must realize the tears in my eyes because he leads us both to the bathroom. I hear his breath hitch as he sees the pink bathwater. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I just don't feel anything, I just want him out so I can go back to it. But I can't tell him that. No, I'll never tell him that.

He pulls out a couple of butterfly bandages and peroxide. He doesn't ask me to drain the tub, he leans over and does it himself. And then - only then, because I realize he loves me like family - I begin to cry. He's not afraid to handle my blood. He isn't afraid to help clean me up. He isn't afraid to touch me. For whatever reason, that means more to me than I thought it would.

"Here," he takes my hand, holds it over the tub and helps me kneel down next to his legs. He pours the peroxide over the cuts and I make a sound I would classify as a whimper if anyone else but me had made it. He whispers some quiet encouragements as he cleans the congealed blood off my arm. They look a whole lot less scary after the blood is gone and the contrast of the blood against my translucent skin is unsettling to say the least, but Spencer works without any complaint. The band-aids are in place and he replaces the old gauze with fresh.

He bends down and turns my face to look at him.

"We're going to go," he wipes the tears from my face with his thumb. "Okay?"

I nod.

 

My bag is packed with extra band-aids and gauze, some socks and hoodies, the relaxed type of clothing you could wear anywhere. I pick it up and throw it in the back of Spencer's car. I get in without help this time. Spencer looks at me with wide eyes.

"Okay, don't flip out," he says, trying to lock the doors discretely. "We're going to pick up Jon," he says slowly, like I'm going to implode if he says it any faster. I turn to open the door and get out but the door's locked and the child safety is still on from when we would be drunk and try to open the door before the car stopped moving.

"Let me out," I growl, fumbling in vain to get the lock undone.

"No," Spencer says smoothly.

"Let me out of your fucking car!" I yell, throwing my hands up.

I fold my arms across my chest and huff. Jon Walker was probably the last person on earth I really wanted to see. He shouldn’t even come with us, he wasn’t Brendon’s friend, if he _was,_ then he would have fucking stopped him from-

“Spencer, let me out of this god damned car, I will not-”

“For the last time, no. I asked him to, so that’s enough.” He said, locking the doors once more for good measure and pulled onto the street.

 

 

Jon's house is - for one - a house on the outskirts of LA. It's pretty big, lot's of windows and doors, a couple of cars out front and Jon himself on the edge of the driveway. He waves as our car nears him. His smile is the same; lopsided and in a quirky way, charming. But my insides still churn at the sight of him. I know he didn't do anything, I just don't want to see him.

"Hey, Ry!" He greets, sliding his bag over to the other side of the car.

I trade flipping him off for a small nod. He somehow understands and turns his attention to Spencer.

"So...your bag?" He asks.

"Oh, right, I have to run by my home real fast," he says to me. "Don't worry, it won't be long."

"I'm not worrying," I say through gritted teeth and I can feel my hands start to tremble. Spencer won't be gone that long, he can't be. He'll be right back. He'll be back. He'll be back. I chant it to myself over and over again as my breathing starts to pick up. My head begins to swim and-

And it stops. Spencer has his hand on mine and it's a silent gesture that from anyone else would be unwanted, uncalled for even, but it's Spencer. And Spencer loves me. _Remember?_

I shift my hand so our fingers intertwine and I feel calm for the first time in months.

 

Spencer pulls up to his home and the light is on over the garage. I forgot his brother was staying with him. He unbuckles his seatbelt and I drop his hand, folding my arms over my chest again and stare out of the passenger side window. He gets out without a word and disappears inside the house.

 

There's a thick silence settling on the car. Jon shifts uncomfortably.

"So..." he says.

I shrug nonchalantly. "What?"

"I want you to know I'm sorry."

"For what? You didn't stick around long enough see the fallout. To be sorry for anything." I snap.

"I know," he looks sad, the corners of his mouth tipping downward, eyes squinted towards the shadow of a cedar tree on the other side of the car. "I'm still sorry."

"I know."

I watch him in the visor mirror. He smiles, just a little and turns to me. I flip the cover down so he doesn't think I was watching him. He leans between the seats, elbows on the shoulder area.

"So you and Spencer-" he wriggles his eyebrows.

"Oh my actual fucking god, do you think we're dating?" I ask, exasperation clear in my voice.

"Wait...you're not? I thought- I always kinda hoped...since...you know-"

"You know what?"

"Since you both lost someone-"

"No." I snap. "We're not."

 

We sit in silence until Spencer comes back, goofy grin on his face. He tosses the duffel bag into the backseat and clambers back in the driver's seat.

"Ryan," he begins, "Where's the first picture taken?"

I shuffle through the stack of Polaroids on my lap and find the first one, the oldest.

"It's in the 2nd Street Tunnel, the one between South Hill and Figueroa."

"Yeah I know the one," he plugs it into the GPS on his phone and pulls away from his home.

He reaches over and laces our hands together again. I feel calm again, knowing he's right here and he's not going anywhere. Jon stares warily at me in the rearview mirror, I glare back at him. We travel in silence until Jon and Spencer start a game of I Spy. I pull out my earbuds and Spencer looks down at them.

"Slow your roll," he says. "Just plug in the playlist. I want to hear your music again. You have good taste." I roll my eyes and do as he says, pressing play on the Spotify icon. The first song is _Let it Be_. Jon and Spencer look at each other before bursting into a fit of giggles.

"What?" I ask indignantly, turning down the volume. "What?"

"Just-" Jon laughs, "Just-"

"Nothing's changed with that part of you," Spencer adds, squeezing my fingers. I squeeze back unconsciously.

 

It doesn't take long to reach the 2nd Street Tunnel. The street is almost deserted. Spencer pulls off on the side of the road, getting out and dragging me out of the car with him.

The tunnel is small, barely fifty feet long and has been here for as long as anyone could remember. It's dusty, grey-red bricks had been graffiti-ed by lost lovers from times past and if you squinted, you could definitely see an RR+BU on the inside.

"C'mon Jon!" He says, both of us stumbling behind him. He holds up the picture of Bren and I, the one where Brendon has an arm around my waist, face in my neck. He aligns it with the bricks on the opposite side of the road.

I reach out and dash across the road, feeling the bricks where we had stood only two years prior. He stood here, he breathed here, he _lived_ here. We were here _together._ I can almost feel his skin on mine, but where I'm mistaken is it isn't Brendon. It's Spencer, rubbing circles on my spine. And I start to cry again. He _was here._ He is _never coming back._ He _left me._ For _good._ I cover our initials with my palm, fingertips staining the bricks from the wetness of my tears.

I throw my arms around Spencer's neck, pulling him into me. He returns the embrace, and I bury my face in his neck.

"I miss him," I mumble. "I miss him so much."

"I know," he rubs my back. "I know you do...we all do."

He doesn't comment on how loud my crying gets, or how tightly I'm holding onto him. When I hiccup, he just holds on to me tighter.

"Please don't ever leave me," I whisper.

"I promise."

I don't tell him that exactly what Brendon had said. I don't tell him that before Brendon shot up with enough heroin to kill three people he told me he loved me and he'd never leave me.

 

I don't tell him Brendon lied.

Jon joins us and hgs me as soon as Spencer lets go. He holds on to me like I'm his brother. I don't say anything about his tears. I don't tell him I know how it feels.

Because he knows. Jon knows. And he's sorry.

 

We get back in the car and I wipe my nose on my sleeve. Spencer turns on the Spotify playlist I had on and the song has changed to an older Iron and Wine song called _Flightless Bird, American Mouth._ I want to skip it, but the song is so unbearably good I leave it.

"Where to next?" Spencer asks.

"Um...the pool at the Morning Motel on the beach? Isn't it closed-"

"Shh," Spencer shook his head. "Doesn't matter. You can jump a fence, right?"

I nod, eyebrows furrowing.

"You too, Jon." He nodded.

"Hell yeah! Nothing like a little B and E!" Jon said enthusiastically with a distinctly Brendon-like bounce.

We rode in semi-silence. The radio hummed along to everything from Glass Animals to the Beatles to Lana Del Rey. Spencer hummed along quietly and Jon texted furiously to someone. At first his thumbs moved languidly across the keypad, but it slowly changed with the lowering of his eyebrows to quick, heavy typing. I didn't ask who he was speaking to, nor what the context was. I rolled over on my side, pulled my knees to my chest and started to doze off. Jon, however, started to breathe more rapidly, and that was annoying. So I opened my eyes, rolled back over and stared at the ceiling until Jon volunteered the information.

"Dallon's dead," he said with a raw edge to his voice, almost like he didn't believe it. "Breezy just told me."

 _Breezy._ Where had I heard that name before-

Oh. _Oh._

Spencer's eyes flashed in the rearview mirror in a _how dare you bring up death to the grieving_ manner. I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers to my temples. I tried to focus on regular breathing.

"-they said they found him at _the Groove,_ hey, Ry, isn't that where you work? Why didn't you say anything-"

"Hey, Jon, why don't we like...not bring this up?" Spencer offered, hands tightening around the steering wheel. I covered my face and the hyperventilating started to make my head swim. I. Can't. Breathe.

"Because I found him!" I say so loudly Spencer swerves, nearly landing us in the sand dunes.

More silence.

"Oh," Jon mumbles, patting my shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Yeah, I know. You don't know a lot of things."

"Ryan." Spencer's pulled off of the road and is staring at me with these stern eyes and I deflate. I apologize to Jon and he nods again.

"No, really. I am," I say. "You would have been there if you could have. I know you were having problems with your dad and that was really important. I get it. I pushed you out when it happened. I pushed you both out. I didn't want you to see me fall apart. It's not your fault he overdosed-" my voice breaks on the word. Still, now, after a year, my voice breaks on the word 'overdose'. "-and most importantly, you couldn't have stopped it. It wasn't your fault."

"It wasn't yours either." Jon offers.

"No, it was. Neither of you know-"

"No, we did know." Spencer says. "We knew he was depressed. We knew that. We knew that he hated himself for loving you and even more for making you love him back. And when he told you that no one loved him, it was an opportunity for you to say 'yeah, no one loves you.' But when you didn't say anything, he realized he was right. You love him. And he didn't want you to, none of us could have stopped that."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I ask, teeth shut tightly together.

"Because-"

"Never mind. I don't want to know." I say, pulling my knees up again and fold my hands against my stomach. "God I wish I had some cigarettes."

"Since when do you smoke?" Jon asked incredulously.

"Since Brendon fucking died on drugs and I don't touch them?" I say, pulling at my hair.

 

The rest of the drive is silent. The tiny bed and breakfast comes into view. It's shut up for the evening, the white picket fence locked. Spencer turns the car off and Jon bounds un and over the fence, stripping down to nothing and hauling himself into the deep end. I grab Spencer's wrist.

"Spence, my hand. It'll bleed-"

"Don't worry about it." He says, rubbing his thumb over the bandage. "I'll even throw you over the fence." He picks me up - ignoring the protests - and pushes me over the top. I land on my ass in the sand. Spencer follows me over and into the pool with Jon. I take off my thick wool socks and boots, rolling up my jeans and dipping my toes into the water. It's warm, mid-July water. I don't put more than my feet in and Spencer looks at me with disapproval.

"What?" I ask, crossing my arms.

"Get in the fucking pool, Ross," he says with a smile.

I roll my eyes.

"They'll get stuck there one day," he says.

"Of course."

I pull off my hoodie and jeans, and I dip into the shallow end. Spencer points to the polaroid next to me and I take it. I line it up against the hotel. Brendon was here. He was right _there._ Looking at _me._ I feel the lump in my throat and I swallow, covering my mouth. I feel my body start to tremble again and I drop the picture on the tile lip of the pool. I dive off of the steps and let the water warm me. When I surface, Spencer is smiling at me and Jon is laughing and just for a moment everything feels good again. My chest doesn't ache and I feel okay.

Suddenly, a light flips on upstairs and someone is running down the stairs. I jump out of the pool and grab my clothes, polaroid and all, and dress as fast as I can. Spencer helps me over the fence, and somewhere I can almost hear Brendon laughing. He would have loved this. I wish he was here.

 

Spencer cranks up the car and we are gone before the person inside can catch us. 

We're laughing so hard Jon is crying and I can barely breathe for a good reason. We begin to travel back into the city, doing the same for the remaining few Polaroids we have. 

There's one for LAX when he came back from his parents' and was running across the airport. And then Spencer - instead of going to the Perch - turns on to Aliso Street. I don't say anything but tighten my hold on his hand and slide my eyes closed. I pull he blue and green plaid fleece blanket from my den up around my neck, my hands beginning to still. I watch the road signs, something I've always found comforting. He takes the south ramp and begins to follow US-101South. I think he's just going to a gas station or something, but he keeps to the left, the road turns into San Bernardino Freeway.

"We're going to Vegas," he says. "It's almost one, you can sleep."

I nod.

"Do you want your hand back?" I ask tiredly.

"No," he laughs. "Eventually, but not right now."

 

I wake up sometime around three when Spencer is getting back in the car from a gas station. He hands me a bag of Sour Patch Kids and gummy bears, then turns to toss Jon Doritos, Mountain Dew and two tacos. Jon has on his sleep mask and noise-cancelling headphones to block us out. I sit up, rubbing my eyes.

"Where are we?" I ask groggily.

"On I-15. We're about an hour and a half from Vegas. We're going to stay in a motel for the night."


	2. Chapter 2

I don’t wake again until I feel blankets being tugged up around my shoulders. I’m in my ‘pajamas’; basically my outfit from the day minus jeans and a denim jacket. The small motel room blearily comes into view, I rub my eyes groggily with the heel of my hands. Spencer’s watching me carefully, my jacket loosely held in his fingers. 

“It’s four,” he whispers. “We’re not heading into the city again until tonight, Jon’s in the room next door. Says he needs his beauty sleep.” He rolls his eyes. I grimace and squeeze my eyes shut, pulling the blanket further up to my chin and roll over. “I put your stuff on the chair, mine is on the TV stand.”

I nod. 

Spencer turns to leave.

“Stay,” I whisper, barely loud enough for me to even hear it. 

“What?”

“Please,” I mumble, slitting my eyes open to stare up at him. “Stay?”

He looks confused for a moment, but nods, tossing my jacket to the green armchair by the door. The room is in pastels, green, yellow, pink and a big metal-framed mirror opposite us. 

Spencer pulls the light blue duvet out from under the pillows and lays down next to me. He turns out the lamp and sighs. 

Spencer laying there is something of a comfort, but he’s so far away. We’re both teetering on the edge of the double bed and it feels like there’s miles between them. I roll over, on my back, and stare at the ceiling. I listen to Spencer’s breathing, waiting for it to level out to signal that he’s finally dropped off, but it doesn’t. I count to a hundred, twice, and his breaths are still shallow. From my peripherals I can see the whites of his eyes. 

I roll over again, facing him. 

He doesn’t move. 

I reach out, wrapping my hand around his arm and lightly tugging. He turns, propping himself up on an elbow. 

“What?” he asks, voice gravelly and tired. 

“Too far,” I mumble, glaring down at my hand. 

Spencer looks confused for a moment, but regroups, turning over and resting an arm around my waist. I scoot a little closer, gripping the front of his tee shirt. His other hand slides easily through my hair and I drift easily to sleep. 

When I wake again, Spencer is up and brushing his teeth in the mirror. 

“Good morning sunshine,” he says sarcastically. Obviously, I’m not a morning person. I squint through the yellow light from the bedside lamp. The sun is rising in the curtains and I can see Spencer’s car from the bed. I clamber out of the bed and haphazardly collect clothes for the day - a Ramones shirt and another pair of ripped jeans. 

The gauze on my hand itched and the faintly flickering of the light bulbs above the mirror made my brain burn. 

“There’s a diner down the road, we were thinking we could talk about the day from there,” Spencer says through a mouthful of toothpaste before punctuating the sentence with a loud spitting noise. 

“Thank you...for that,” I say, voice still gravelly from sleep. “I’m going outside for a bit, be right back.”

“You better not be going for a smoke,” he says, raising an eyebrow. 

I make a noncommittal noise and maneuver my way out the door, grabbing the pack of cigarettes and the lighter from the nightstand. 

I open the motel door and run straight into Jon’s chest. He wrinkles his nose at the items in my hand before bypassing me and flopping into the armchair. I shut the door behind me and slid into the green plastic molding chair. 

The air was unbelievably dry, hot and stifling. But Vegas was home. I take a cigarette and bite into the filter, lighting the end and huffing. The cuts on my wrist ache, but I dismiss it quickly. It’s not important. Never has been, never will be. 

I know that, for the moment, I am okay. But not an okay where I’m not sad, or even numb, but an okay that makes me a little less sad than usual. 

Which is a start. 

I don’t think about how much I don’t want to get better. Maybe when we get home Spencer will send me to therapy, and that’ll definitely be an adventure. I won’t go, that’s for sure. I’d rather die-

Spencer opens the door to the hotel room, glares at the glowing cherry and screws his face up. 

“That really isn’t a good look for you,” I say through the smoke, taking it between my two fingers and exhaling. 

“Neither are being bald or having yellow teeth,” he says back. “Anyway, we’re going to breakfast, are you coming or what?”

I shake my head, replacing the cigarette and sinking deeper into the chair. 

“I’m not hungry right now. I might catch up with you later.”

“Okay,” Jon says, handing me his key to the room. “Just in case you stay here.”

I hum out my thanks and slip my finger through the keychain. I watch their backs as they round the corner of the greying motel. 

The sky is turning a vibrant blue color, with not a single cloud in the sky. The sun is just high enough to hurt your eyes but not make you sweat and every once in awhile, a sunbleached car will pass. Everything here is sunbleached: the cars, the roads, the hotels, the furniture, even the people. Everything is dried to the point of no return. Spencer’s green nissan is the only other car in the lot; the other is a beige van parked on the other side of the lot. The motel is shaped like a square, minus the last side. The open side is filled with a few shrubs and a sign advertising the vacancies. The rest is open to the highway. The walls of the motel are teal with bright pink trim and yellow doors to match. It has 1951 written all over it, like it hadn’t hanged since the opening. The motel lobby is in the far corner across from me, the other side of the square. A neon sign flashes that they are, in fact, open. From here I can see a balding man wearing a Hawaiian shirt, flipping through an old newspaper behind the desk. Across the street, the diner stands tall in the sea of sand. The walls are metal, shiny and blinding in the Nevada sun. It used to be a train car, according to the sign I can barely read. There’s a big, round-cornered window with butter colored blinds half drawn. The door is also round and outlined in red. From where I sit, I can make out Spencer and Jon sitting in the booth under the window, smiling and laughing.

I grimace. 

I stub out the cigarette and make my way back inside. 

I go to the bathroom and brush the smoke from my mouth and avoid eye contact with my reflection. 

I straighten my denim jacket and run my hands through my hair absentmindedly. I smell like smoke and I know Spencer will bitch about it getting into the upholstery of his car, but at the moment I don’t care. 

I settle into the messy bed, the one still made up looks too stiff and unwelcoming. When they come back I don’t want to look like I’ve been doing nothing, so I drag my book of Arthur Rimbaud poems off of the nightstand and stare at the same page until they return. 

“So the day’s been planned,” Jon says as soon as the door cracks open, setting down a marked over map of Las Vegas. 

“Really,” I say, arching an eyebrow at them. 

“Don’t sound too excited,” Spencer says, shutting the door behind him. 

“Anyway, so these are the points we’ll do during the day, not all of the pictures are exactly inside Vegas - oh like this one, this is Spring Valley. Oh and that one is on I-15, you probably saw it last night.” Jon says excitedly, pointing between the map and the stack of pictures in his hand. 

“So we’ll start in the Valley and kind of circle around until nightfall and then go back to Vegas, cool? Cool.” He sits at the foot of my bed and I kind of want to kick him off. But I don’t. I just pull the book closer to my chest and actually begin to read it. 

**That part was pretty dry and i have no idea how to fix it**

[Try adding a bit. Maybe they meet up with Jon and plan the day or something. You could add more of Ryan’s feelings as well, like how he felt cuddling with Spencer and how he feels about going to Vegas.]

_ Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas _ shimmers in the median. A few tourists have gathered to take pictures and the sun has set just enough to paint the sky a lavender pink. The sky is cloudless, looking more like a watercolor painting than sky. 

Spencer shakes his head, a wide smile on his face. He squeezes my hand. 

“Damn, it’s been so fucking long,” he says. 

Jon nods. “I haven’t been in Vegas in God knows how long.”

I take a long drag off of my cigarette, squinting into the sunset. Spencer fishes the picture out from his coat pocket, halting us in the middle of the sidewalk. Uneasiness washes over me as he holds up the picture. 

My throat swells, tears prickling in the backs of my eyelids. I can’t believe I’d ever looked so  _ happy.  _ I take the picture, swearing as I scorch it a little on the side. 

“You shouldn’t smoke,” Spencer says, a look of distaste contorting his features. I simply place the filter between my teeth and straighten out the polaroid. I smile a bit, thinking about him. Vegas was his home. He may have left, but he always came back here. Always. 

Well, maybe not always. 

No, not always. 

Never always. 

I hand Spencer the picture back and take another drag. 

“It  _ stinks, _ ” he says. 

“ _ You _ stink.” I say, grimacing. Brendon used to smoke - it was weed but still - he would say it made him feel like a dragon. 

I can’t help but think about it now. The fire in my lungs feels a little more like stale desperation than a mythical creature. 

Music filters out of a smoke-hazed bar, girls in stilettos and g-strings dance on tabletops and I can’t for the life of me remember why I ever went in those dives. Ever. 

“Hey,” Jon says, jerking his head towards a bar with glowing letters spelling out the name “Kruger’s”. “I think that’s one of them.”

Spencer pulls out a picture, the one where Brendon was draped over the sticky bar, a half-drained pint in his hand.

Spencer leads us across the street and into the glowing bar. 

It’s covered with neon signs. The bartender is serving brightly colored drinks with light-up cubes in them to girls in sparkling dresses. It’s packed with people, shiny and loud. Of course Brendon loved it. 

Spencer squints, lines up the photo and squats down on a barstool. He pats the one next to him. I sit down, ignoring Jon plopping down next to me.

I order a few ginger beers and pitch myself forward onto my elbows. 

“So, this is it, huh. The last one.” I remember vaguely that we went by Reno the night before to do the other ones. I was half asleep. 

I nod, taking a long sip from the brown bottle. I plan on getting smashed. Alcohol was always good for me. 

I lace my pinkie with Spencer’s and we fall silent. 

Eventually, a girl comes over and tries to whisk Jon away into the ‘throes of ecstasy.’

“I hope she meant the pills,” he groans, rubbing over his face. “Remember when Brendon got that stripper to-”

“Hello, I was his  _ boyfriend. _ I shouldn’t really hear what B was doing with strippers.” I say, taking another sip. 

Alcohol has the ability to blur your memories. To make you feel as if time is just  _ flying.  _ So maybe, with six empty beers on the counter, I feel like I swallowed a deadweight. 

“Alcohol is supposed to  _ help,” _ I whine into Spencer’s shoulder as he maneuvers me out of the bar. “I just,” I rub a hand over my lips, feeling the tears welling up. “I-I’m not supposed to  _ feel _ any more. I’m supposed to-” I hiccup and feel bile in the back of my throat. “-forget…”

Jon puts a hand on my shoulder. 

“You shouldn’t trash yourself like this Ry-” I’m vaguely aware that the sleeve of my jacket got caught on something. Jon’s breath hitches. 

“How dare you Ryan Ross?” He’s yelling. I squint at him, Spencer wraps an arm around my waist. 

“Jon, you’re making a scene,” Spencer mutters. 

“No! I will not let you enable him, he would have  _ died,  _ Spence! He would have  _ died  _ and left us alone, just like Brendon. But Brendon was too  _ fucking selfish-” _

My hand collides with his jaw, sloppily with barely any force, but Jon stumbles. 

“Don’t you ever,  _ ever _ talk about B like that. Ever, do you understand?”

Jon furrows his eyebrows, but nods. 

I take my place back with Spencer. Jon doesn’t say another word until we get back to the motel. 

When I wake up, I’m warm. Unbelievably warm. I smell something soft, like nice champagne. Yellow light filters in through my eyelids. I don’t open my eyes, but I feel hands at my lower back. My cheek is pressed into the chest of someone warm, comforting. My leg is thrown over their thighs, my arm over their chest. They’re on their back, an arm around my waist, the other laying right under mine.The blanket is bunched around my waist.  I sigh, content.

I am relaxed. 

I feel the rumble of the other person’s chest as they begin to wake up. 

“Ryan?” they say groggily.  _ Spencer _ . 

I hum into his chest, moving just slightly so he knows I’m kind of awake. 

“Ryan, it’s almost nine.”

“And?” I say, rolling over a little to stare at him. 

“We have a four hour drive ahead of us. We maybe should get going?” 

I shake my head, returning to my previous position. 

“Ryan.”

“No…” I groan, covering my face with my hands. I don’t want to move ever again. Ever. 

“Just get dressed, you can sleep on the way home.”

“But…” He raised his eyebrow at me. 

“But what.”

“But...you won’t be there to keep me warm.”

I think he laughed, but he didn’t push me away. 

We gather our things at a quarter ‘til one and the car seems to be a lot fuller on the way home than it did coming up here. Jon is crammed into the backseat, and I’d be lying if I said that that didn’t give me a little satisfaction. I offer to drive and Spencer takes it, falling into the passenger seat and falling asleep as soon as we hit the open road. 

We don’t stop anywhere. We just drive the straight four hours until we get home. The car is silent, save the occasional round of I Spy Jon and Spencer get way too into. And the radio is playing, very softly on a station that only plays songs from the seventies.  _ Five Years  _ by David Bowie comes on at some point and it reminds me of Brendon. Maybe it reminds me of him because he had the vinyl for  _ The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars _ . He did play it all the time, nearly constantly. But maybe it’s because we only had five years. Five short years together that seem like a lifetime. We only had five years to love each other and to walk in step with the other person. It was only five years. But it felt like forever. 

I don’t notice that I’m crying again until I feel Spencer’s thumb taking the tears off my cheeks. I smile a little, swallow and pull the shattered and broken pieces together just for a little while. Just until I get home to return to the rosey pink water. I check the clock. 

For the last day of my life, I’m not as sad as I used to be. I’m not as lonely with the two people who know me best sitting next to me. And I think of a monologue I heard in class one year. I have no idea where it came from but it was beautiful. 

It was a man, talking to his girlfriend who just tried to kill herself. He said “If I were dating someone with cancer, I wouldn’t tell them to keep going through chemo if all they were doing was suffering and it wasn’t working. I’d let them know it was okay to stop. To me, this isn’t any different. I won’t tell you to keep going to therapy if it’s not working, if you’re still suffering I won’t make you take your pills. But if you decide to follow through one day, just let me know. Even if it’s just a day, an hour or five minutes I have left to spend with you. Because I’d want to know. To remember.”

And I do remember. But I wished I’d known. 

But then again, Brendon wasn’t much of a planner and for all I know, it was an impulsive, rash, irresponsible thing he didn’t even know he had done until he’d done it. 

We drop Jon off at his home with his things and I even wave to him when he gets to the door. Spencer and I trade places and I immediately roll my window down. 

“How does your wrist feel?” Spencer asks as we pull out of his driveway. 

“Sore? I don’t know. Hurts,” I mumble, curling my hands under my jaw and folding over myself to get a better sleeping position. 

“Are you still wanting to do it?” He asks. 

I don’t answer. And he knows. Just another twenty minutes and I’ll see Brendon again. I close my eyes and picture his face: the curl of his lips, the crinkling by his eyes when he smiled, the way his voice sounded when he laughed. The old VHS tapes we’d recorded are stashed in a box on the bookcase. I don’t know why I haven’t watched them sooner. So maybe two hours more of my life. One hundred twenty minutes left until I see him again.

“Ry,” Spencer begins. He sounds tired. 

I open my eyes.

“Ryan, I want you to know that,” his voice breaks. “Fuck, okay. I just want you to know that if you do it, I will never forgive myself for letting you.” He stops the car behind my apartment complex. Spencer’s hands fall to his lap and he stares at the cement in front of the grill of his car. I stare at him. “You scared the shit out of me that night.”

“What night?” I say through the cigarette I’ve just lit.

“The one where Brendon died,” he sighs. “I thought you were just going to lose it and break things and scream and cry until your lungs gave out right there in the middle of the hospital. I remember the way you looked at him in the casket and how his mother hugged you until I thought she’d never let go.”

I roll the yellow filter between my teeth and stare at the billowy clouds. 

“You never cried. Jon said that it was because you were in shock-”

“Of course I was in shock. Point for Jon, huh.”

“Will you listen to me?” He says angrily. “If anything were to happen to you, anything at all, I would never, ever forgive myself-”

“You’ve said that already.”

“-I wasn’t there when you needed me, and I’m not done making it up to you.” 

An old Beach Boys song is playing softly. I can hear him breathing. 

“Spencer-”

“Ryan-” we say at the same time. 

“Let me finish,” he says. “I know that you’re hurting and it’s really hard, but try to think of what it’ll do to me.”

“That’s a selfish way of thinking about it.” I snap, grabbing my bag and shoving my hands into my pockets as deep as they’ll go. My feet can’t carry me fast enough up the stairs, but Spencer yells something incoherent. 

I don’t stop, just run straight through the lobby of the apartment complex, take the stairs instead of the elevator and keep walking, right to my door. 

“Fuck!” My keys are in the door pocket of Spencer’s car. 

I take the elevator this time, going down is a lot harder than going up and I walk as slowly as possible until I get to the door of the green nissan. Spencer is sitting there, arms folded, glaring at me through the open window. 

“I left my keys,” I say, opening the door hooking my finger through the keyring and fishing them out. He takes my uncut wrist and I can feel his eyes. 

“If this is the last time I’m going to see you-” 

I pitch myself forward and kiss him. I want to shut him up, but I also want to let him know. He has two hours. Maybe only one. He tilts his head and I pull away, just slightly. Enough to let our foreheads brush. 

“Goodbye, Spence,” I say. And he nods. 

He knows. 

Back in my home, I lay on my chest on the hardwood floor, yellow lined paper in front of me. I’m writing on the back of it. 

_ Dear Brendon, _

_ Last night, I knew what to say. But you weren’t there to hear it.  _

_ If you were there, I would say that I was happy with you. I was so very happy. But I am not who I once was. I am different. I am scarred and uneasy most of the time. I am not happy.  _

_ Last night, I saw you in my dreams again. You were dancing in the rain, smiling, laughing. It was so real, I forgot you were gone. How easily do we forget these things that happen to those we love most.  _

_ Spencer and Jon took me on a roadtrip to find you, but the whole time, I couldn’t help but think I’d left you here in these dusty walls. I hope this time- _

_ What I’m trying to say, the thing I’ve been missing all this time, is that I love you. And I wished you’d come home.  _

I can’t bring myself to reopen the freshly scabbed cuts. I can’t make myself want to. With the feeling of Spencer’s lips on mine still fresh, I think I have something else to live for.

I watch the old tapes of Brendon. There are some where he’s dancing or singing or doing whatever he did. His voice had started to sound different in my head, but I’m glad I have these to remember, and remembering is starting to feel a little less like drowning. 

When I’m done, I’m crying, a sealed bottle of Jim Beam laying next to me as I sit on the floor, knees to my chest, back against the faded blue sofa. I have a hand in my hair, elbow on my knee as I watch Brendon talking to me as we stand on the bay. 

“Ry, Ryro,” he says, smiling brightly. “Ryan, listen,” He giggles, covering his mouth. I hear myself ask him to let me see his smile. He does. And it is beautiful. The wind blows his bangs from his eyes and the sky is grey, and he is the brightest thing I have ever seen. 

Ever. 

And somewhere in the background I can make out the outline of the hotel, the one where we jumped the fence just two nights earlier. I was just here, mingling with Brendon’s ghost. The pictures are in my bag, in a box. Just to keep them from being wrinkled. And I can’t tell what I want to do with them. Part of me wants to hang them up, another part wants to burn them in the fireplace and another wants to lock them up in a safe. I pick out the ones I like, but among them is a stack pictures I never remember taking. They’re separate from the others, tied together with a rubber band and the writing on the bottom isn’t Brendon’s, nor is it mine. 

It’s Spencer’s. 

They’re all of me; leaning against his car, asleep in the passenger seat, under the sign with Jon. These are all me. I hadn’t even noticed. 

The lump in my throat gets bigger and the heaviness in my bones returns. I cry. I scream, I break things and I sob until I throw up. I’m a mess, a chaotic swirl of cigarette smoke and mourning; destroying everything in my wake. It’s exhausting and I drift off on the tiles in the bathroom, the window over the claw-footed tub open. 

I awake at three in the morning to the sound of sirens. They aren’t for me, I am alive. I know that. They race by the apartment complex and I wonder if they make a rescue team for people who need saving from themselves. But the sirens race past and I count them. I can’t open my eyes, they’re swollen from tears and my throat is burning and raw. I’m empty, but emptiness is better than numbness and I’m grateful for it. 

I wonder if anyone is feeling as badly as I am at the moment. I think of all of the people living on the streets, with no one but themselves. I think of everyone sitting in a bar trying to drink their lives away. I think of Spencer, who thinks I am dead. 

I picture him, hunched over a sticky bar just like the other people I’ve imagined, face swollen and mind blank. I imagine him downing shots until he can’t stand, then I try to imagine who will make sure he gets home okay. Maybe he’ll call Jon, or even me just for the hell of it. I imagine that he’ll stumble through his home until he passes out on the couch and forget everything while he sleeps. Then I picture him waking up, hungover like hell and then remembering and the vicious cycle starting all over again. 

I reach over to the red phone on the bathmat and dial his number. I want him to know I’m not dead. 

He picks up after four rings and says nothing, just sighs a little bit and I can hear him adjust the phone. 

“I’m okay.”

_ Dear Brendon, _

_ It’s been a while. A month, if you were wondering. I’ve been thinking, suicide doesn’t erase the pain. It just passes it on to someone else.  _

_ So maybe that’s why I’m still here. I don’t want to pass our pain on to Spencer. I don’t want him to suffer like I have. So I’ll take it. I’ll do it for him.  _

_ It’s now 1997 and it’s been almost three years since you’ve past. I remember you just like it was yesterday.  _

_ You are a part of me that I carry with me everywhere I go. I’m happy to let you know that I am doing okay. Spencer take care of me now. I work at a music producer’s office downtown which is pretty cool. I mix a lot of music for them.  _

_ Speaking of which, I don’t go by the Groove anymore. I occasionally drive past it on the way to work, but it’s not a part of my life. I haven’t quit smoking, which drives Spencer insane. I’m no longer able to smoke in the bathroom because Spence says it makes the house stink (yes, even with the window open). It’s just a matter of time before I’m not allowed to smoke outside.  _

_ I’m not so sad anymore, Bren. I’m learning to manage it. But it has only been a month and sometimes I wake up with an ache in my chest so deep I can’t move. But Spencer is always there. He’ll call into work for me, he always does. I remember doing that for you a few times. Funny how life will change us.  _


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a change in style for sure. Since Ryan has now stopped writing letters to Brendon, he is now writing a letter to you, the reader. This is Ryan's internal monologue and should be read as such. It is a stream of consciousness and will not be as smooth as the rest of the story has been. Thank you for all of the kudos and comments, they are greatly appreciated!

It’s June, 1998. I’m okay. The sun is setting and the park is quiet. I’m under a willow tree, back against the trunk. I hear the crunching of little paws through the fresh summer grass, followed by a beagle hopping right into my lap, licking my face and squirming excitedly. 

“Hey you,” I smile, setting my book down and cradling the dog to my chest comfortably. She stops wiggling and sighs, licking my cheek once more. 

Spencer parts the willow branches and sits down next to me, yellow frisbee in hand. 

He pulls me close, our dog, Florence, nestling between our hips. 

“Read me something,” he says into my hair. 

It’s the Arthur Rimbaud book from years previous. 

“The Sun, the hearth of affection and life, pours burning love on the delighted earth, and when you lie down in the valley, you can smell how the earth is nubile and very full-blooded; how it's huge breast, heaved up by a soul, is, like God, made of love, and, like woman, of flesh, and that it contains, big with sap and with sunlight, the vast pullulation of all embryos; and everything grows, and everything rises…”

 

I stopped writing letters to Brendon. I don’t need to anymore. I’m not alone and I am okay. I still visit his grave on his birthday and our anniversary; and I never go alone. Spencer is always there for me, it seems. We’ve managed. We moved in together to a house right on the beach, complete with a pool in the backyard. I’ve been able to work a high-paying job in the music producing business and Spencer has landed a recording contract with a new label in LA. 

We don’t talk about Pete or Joe anymore. I find we don’t have to. 

I pass by the Groove every once in awhile, but I never stop. Not anymore. 

I’ve quit smoking, Spencer wouldn’t let me do it in the house and threatened to get a spray bottle. 

Florence came into our lives a few months ago. A rescue center had a litter of bench-leg beagles and Spencer brought one home. I got to name her. 

She’s been the best dog, so small and chubby. She sleeps in our bed with us. She keeps my feet warm. 

 

I made it.


End file.
